Daryl/Zee: New Year's Resolution/Confession

Just gonna say it:  I slept with the guy everyone warned me about, on purpose, in spite of or maybe even because of everyone warning me about him. 

I was in a bit of a funk at the end of the year; i didn't really have enough time off accrued to take any sort of Christmas vacation, but work slowed to a crawl because everyone else was making plans around the holidays.  I've made some friends in Boston, but nobody else who was also at loose ends, and I kept finding excuses not to put up a tree or decorate the apartment.  Which is fine until you wake up on the 25th with nothing to do and seriously think about calling your ex to see what he's up to. 

I didn't, but the next week was even slower, so as I sipped my hot chocolate as I wandered around the city's First Night event, I made an actual resolution:  I was not going to be J.T.'s stupid ex who constantly thought about how she gave up her entire life for a man any more.  I was gonna aggressively move on.  I actually said this aloud right before the fireworks started going off; if anyone around me had been paying attention, it would have been so cool. 

Then, a day and a half later, it was First Thursday at The Changeling.  There actually weren't many of us there, and a couple left when the infamous Lenny showed up, and by the end of the night, it was just us. 

It's been a couple months since I've posted, but Lenny stayed at the Inn a few summers ago, got turned into a black woman, but things lined up so he could go back to his real life in just a few weeks.  Since then, he's really had a thing for other Inn people, especially women who used to be men, and hooks up with a lot of them, but it never lasts and often ends badly.  Most of the sizable Boston contingent of transformees at least have a second-hand story.  I was warned.  But, as the saying goes, I wasn't looking for Mr. Right, but Mr. Right Now. 

I was a bit surprised when I actually met him; from the way everyone talked, I was expecting a twenty-something horndog who had either convinced himself that his experience had set the course of his life or learned how to work a very specific new fetish.  Instead, he's forty-ish, balding a little though in decent shape, and using reading glasses.  It's kind of cute, not in an "I'm attracted to him" way, but small and non-threatening.  Even having been warned, it made me underestimate how good his game is.  He maintains eye contact, even though I've taken off my blazer and the turtleneck underneath it's a bit tight, compliments my hair on a way that indicates he knows that it can be a bit of a challenge without underlining it, and waitress for me to bring up sports and other male-coded things without looking relieved afterward. It's better than most people who sit down next to me at a bar manage. 

Long story short, we wind up at his house.  He complains a bit about wearing a condom, but does.  The gossip about his dick isn't exaggerating, and, yeah, he absolutely comes across as someone with first-hand experience in having a clitoris; he finds my g-spot quick! He doesn't fumble around squeezing my breasts like stress balls or putting his dick anywhere i wouldn't want it.  And while it's been a while for me, I do know how to keep him hard so we can go for a long time.

Eventually, we've both climaxed and are lying on top of the sheets, sweaty, naked, and panting in a good way.  He turns and looks at me with a smile.  "That was amazing!  You were meant to be a woman, don't you think?"

I laughed a bit.  "I don't know about that.  You ask me a year ago, and I'm sure I was meant to be one specific man's, uh, life partner."  I tripped a bit there; "girlfriend" seemed insufficient, but i can't say I'd had a lot of specific fantasies of being J.T.'s wife, even by the time I got ready to propose.  "I'm kind of not doing 'meant to be' right now."  The spell broken a bit, I started picking up my clothes and getting dressed.  "Well, aside from being meant to be at work tomorrow, if you know what I mean."

I called a rideshare, got back home, and got three terrible hours of sleep, but there was barely anyone in the office to notice.  Around 11:30am, I got the first text, asking if I wanted to do something more like an actual date the next night.  I was in a call, so I ignored it, and worked through lunch.  By 3pm, there were five messages, not angry or indignant or anything, but it seemed like a lot.  I feel like I would have given a woman I liked a little space, but I was kind of worried about asking anyone if this was a red flag, because the people who wouldn't find a woman in her thirties asking this weird would be all "girl, you slept with Lenny?"

I was bored enough binging the latest season of Lioness (there are like fifteen minutes of characters you actually care about in an hour of that show) to text back, and, yeah, we wound up arranging dinner and a movie the next night.

Based on the movie and restaurant he booked, it was going to be pretty casual, so I showed up in jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie.  Nothing torn up or anything - all Christmas-gift-card-new, in fact - but he raised his eyebrows. 

I tried to be playful.  "What, not what you expect from someone 'meant to be a woman'?  You didn't get to experience wearing skirts in the winter!"

He laughed, but it kind of got weird really fast, and at the end of the movie, we went for drinks, and he pointed out a couple of girls who were more dolled up for their Saturday night and said I'd look good in that or whatever, and by the end, I kind of wasn't in the mood.  I said so, he got kind of pissy about it, but ultimately I just went home.

Anyway, I actually had a busy week at work after that - quarterly planning stuff, and really wasn't looking to go out so much as go home at the end of the day, but he's kept texting me.  Even wanted to know if I was doing anything special for Martin Luther King Day, and, geez, white guys, do not ask your Black friends that.  Especially not if you're looking for a date or fun times; I actually had some 23-year-old ask at work if there were remembrances or events scheduled, and could kind of respect someone not knowing and wanting to know what kind of holiday it was for other people.  I said it wasn't exactly a day where I went to church, but I was kind of new in town and didn't know what was planned myself, and should find out for next year.

Which isn't the point so much that it was a sort of clarifying moment for how presumptuous Lenny could be and how actually dating him was going to be all sorts of uncomfortable even if he did have a certain understanding of my life that 98% of the folks I might meet didn't.  So I finally told him that this wasn't going to happen, but I was grateful for that one night.

It hasn't stopped him from texting me yet, so that's going to be a bit of a thing for a while.  But I don't regret the hook-up; I kind of needed a rebound to prove to myself that I am in fact a heterosexual girl who enjoys that rather than a guy who has spent years as various women because the girl I fell for turned out to be something else.  And also that, while I kind of hope I'll find someone I can share my whole real history with, that may not be an entirely unmixed blessing!

-Zee

Daryl/Zee: First Thursday Club

As I mentioned last time, one of the reasons I decided to settle in Boston is that there's Inn people there, but it hasn't really been an official support system until, I guess, fairly recently, when one of the local folks decided that she owned a bar and might as well get folks together there.  Invitations got sent out and, after work, I headed the other direction up the Red Line and then took a buss from the end of the line a little way up Massachusetts Avenue and found "The Changeling".

Props on the clever name - it is, at heart, an Irish pub, even if the Irish lady who runs it used to be a Texan (and thus puts unusually good barbecue on the menu) and is thus sort of like those creatures placed in other people's lives.  Is that too much explaining the joke?

So, I walked in a little nervously and saw it was a bit busy, what with it being happy hour and all.  But then, it's just a bar, so I walked up to the counter and asked the bartender if she knew anything about "First Thursday Changelings' Club".

She was actually Irish, and said I'd be wantin' t' go t' the far booth, pointing me at one in a back corner, near a foosball table but no windows.  One person was already sitting there - a woman of about 40 or so, who leapt up when she saw me.  "Hi, I'm Ashlyn!  Welcome to my bar.  You must be...  Za-rye-uh?"

"Za-ree-ya.  Call me 'Zee'.  You look great!"  I looked her up and down a little, not sure what I'd expected, other than it wasn't quite this.  As someone who had a number of older female friends as Magda, I've known a few who having not just been very attractive in their youth, but who traded off that, are either blithely unaware of how time has worked on them or who have been maniacal in maintaining it to the extent that they can and won't let you miss it.  Ashlyn, it seemed, was in the second category, wearing a green dress with a plunging neckline that showed she still had an impressive rack, although it was maybe a little tighter than intended in some other spots.  Her hair is bright red, and she's got strong-looking arms and legs as well as a face that ha a few more lines but great cheekbones.

"Thank you.  40 can hit hard and I'm not going down without a fight!"  We laughed, and then we started talking.  She asked if I was a Celtics fan yet, and I told her that I'd manage to cling to the Bulls despite not having been in Chicago for a while, and she expressed her sympathy but also her respect, because she'd given in little by little over the years, especially once she opened the bar.

We talked a lot of sports, and, god, I missed that; the ex's friends weren't really sports people, none of my female friends have been, and even the best of guy friends tend to get weird when a lady likes sports.  I mean, I did the same thing back in the day, because it's like a signal that you're extra-compatible or something at best and a threat to the ego at worst.

We'd gone on about basketball for a while when a blonde lady about Ashlyn's age came in and he beckoned her over.  "Zee, Penny; Penny, Zee.  We shook hands like it was some secret 'we're actually guys and don't hug' signal, although Ashlyn was a hugger where this old friend was concerned.  "So, how's the new job?"

Penny grunted.  "It's a lot.  I mean, it used to be enough to be married to a lawyer while writing a couple books a year, but Ray's practice is just getting off the ground and Millie is just good enough to need expensive coaches, so now I'm dealing with a classroom full of twenty Millies twice a day, and this is just part time!"  She turned and gave me a wry grin.  "Don't get me wrong, being a mother and a teacher is very rewarding, but sometimes I wish I could have passed my daughter bookish Arthur Milligan DNA as opposed to how athletic and competitive the original Penelope Lincoln was!"

That kind of bowled me over.  "Geez, I hadn't thought of that."

"It's weird!  It's not like I ever look at Millie and feel like she's not my kid or love her any less, but if every parent looks at their kids and wonders where that comes from, at least they have some idea!  I keep getting blindsided by the parts of her that aren't clearly Ray."

I nodded, and then she pointed at the guy who was walking from the bar.  "Now, Ande - Ande isn't going to have to worry about that, since he'll be using his twin's DNA!"

Ande started to back off but Ashlyn grabbed his arm.  "Don't mind her, she doesn't mean you're going to be having kids any time soon.  Now, c'mon, how do you know Penny?"

"I don't know her, I just, uh, sort of asked for something weird at a book signing."

"Not that weird - I get one or two Inn folks who want that to be part of their autographs a year.  Usually on the Pygmalion books, even though I haven't done one of those in five years, although some of the Wandering Inn ones attract the same audience.  Not that Ashlyn pays attention to anything but the mysteries."

A few other folks showed up who don't contribute to the blog and said to respect their privacy.  We stayed well past happy hour, and by the time things were about to break up at around ten, one gave a big, exaggerated, maybe somewhat tipsy sigh.  "Well, Zee, it looks like you got lucky and Lenny's not going to show up."

Penny turned to Ashlyn.  "Wait, you invited Lenny?"

"What?  I couldn't not invite him!"

Penny harrumphed.  "Agree to disagree."

I noticed a bunch of folks were kind of trying not to look at me.  "Who's Lenny?"

The lady who brought him up took me by the hand.  "Lenny spent, like, eight weeks as a woman five years or so ago, and ever since, he's hit on everyone who returned from the Inn a moderately attractive woman, saying that we should stick together so that we can share everything about our lives."

A few other folks jumped in.  "Which isn't entirely wrong."  "But he's such a weirdo about it!"  "I don't know how he even finds out."  "Learned what a girl likes, though."  "And that dick--"

The first woman slapped the table.  "Hey, stop making him sound good!  Fucker cheated on me with that stewardess for two months!"  She pointed at me.  "I'm just saying, you are totally his type - he really likes girls who used to be guys, and black girls besides.  He acts like he really knows what you go through, and talks a good game, but he's a fucking dog."

I was a bit taken aback.  "Well, I'm not looking to get back into another relationship right now."

Penny punched my shoulder.  "You say that now, but c'mon, you're a romantic like me, and guys like Lenny have a real appeal to gals like us.  I mean, if I hadn't already been married when he set his sights on me..."  She shook her head to clear it.  "Welp, that's enough sharing for tonight!  Anyone heading to Camberville and want to split a cab?"

A couple folks raised their hands, and the party split up after that.  At that relatively late hour, it took me over an hour to get home, and the walk at the end got my blood flowing just enough that I couldn't sleep now it's too late to try.

Good thing it's no-meetings Friday!

-Zee